No Rest For The Wicked
by Derry
Summary: Set towards the end of the Angel series finale Not Fade Away, Wes contemplates Death and all its idiosyncracies and gets a much needed slap upside the head from one of the few people who ever seemed to know how.


_Set towards the end of the "Angel" series finale "Not Fade Away", this is the Fic That Time Forgot. Generously beta-ed by the wonderful Poodle within a month or two of that finale airing, I'm afraid this fic got suffered being put on the back-burner while I and my other fantastic beta Wiseblood got caught up in Real Life issues and then (in my case) other fandoms. I realize that by now, even if Joss Whedon and his crew had been given a sixth season, the series would be over and I can't help but wonder (with a certain foreboding) what the fate of my beloved Wes would have been at the end of that final season anyway. Forget the whole Fred/Illyria business, it was Wesley's soul that was really destroyed in the fifth season and there was no evidence saving him was in any way a priority. So what follows was the fixit fic I wrote at the time to deal with my disappointment. And originally, I intended it to be the prologue to a much longer redemption piece with big roles for Illyria and Connor and, believe it or not, Dawn. But that is unlikely to happen now, as my focus has moved on. I haven't even read a Buffy/Angelverse fic in more than a year, let alone thought about writing one. So thanks and apologies to Poodle and Wiseblood and all the others who shared the love of "Angel" with me in various ways. To coin a phrase - it was one hell of a ride! Cheers! (December 2005)_

**No Rest for the Wicked**

by Derry

For a while, there was only darkness of an indeterminate length. He was unsure how long it took him to become aware he was no longer… nonexistent. A glance at his wrist, when he once again became aware of his body and limbs, availed him nothing. It appeared his watch had stopped. Sitting up, Wesley rubbed a hand across his face, shook off the residual fuzz in his brain, and took stock of his situation.

Out of all possible possibilities, he was fairly sure that he had never expected anything quite like this.

He tried to remember if he'd had any real expectations at all. Since he had been involved in studies of the mystical and supernatural for as long as he could remember, he'd come across countless theories about the nature of death and the possibility of an afterlife existence. From time to time, he'd wondered if he'd ever really taken any of these to heart or formed any expectations about what the reality of death and afterlife might actually be. Considering the issue now, he decided that he'd never invested more in one theory over another. Rather, he had always thought that "expect the unexpected" seemed a very prudent guideline to use when approaching the subject.

This – wherever it was – definitely fit the criteria for unexpected.

Certainly, in any ponderings that he may have had on the subject, Wesley was damn sure that he'd never seriously considered that such a place would take the blatantly allegorical form of a hotel lobby. A dark, dusty and ridiculously familiar hotel lobby, at that.

He suspected that it wasn't meant to represent his own personal version of Hell. Well, not strictly speaking anyway. Although he'd come across so many people who had been to "hell dimensions" in recent years that the concept of Hell itself had lost a fair amount of its impact on him anyway.

No, he thought, this was clearly some kind of prelude to arrival in Hell, or wherever it was he was scheduled to go, a temporary stop en route to the deceased's final destination.

He wandered over to the reception desk, wiping dust away as he ran his fingers over the distinctive scorchmark on its surface which had steadfastly resisted all of their numerous attempts to remove it from the woodwork. Tracing that blackened patch where Cordelia had once used a campfire stove to reheat Chinese takeout during one of their temporary, if fairly recurrent, electrical outages, his mind drifted back to those far simpler days. Just the three of them – Cordelia, Angel and himself – dusting and polishing to make the former art-deco glory of the Hyperion hotel a suitable venue for business. Well, to tell truth, it had been mostly him and Cordelia, since Angel had been drifting into that strange period of dreaming-stupor for up to twenty hours a day. And _that_ had all led to the obsession with Darla which had in turn led to the arrival of Connor. And in the bleaker version of reality that Wes was once again privy to, Connor had eventually become a focus of discord that had split their "family" apart in such a way that it had never really recovered.

And now vibrant, vivacious Cordelia was dead. And dear, sweet Fred... she was dead, too – not to mention Wesley himself, apparently. And when you thought about it, Angel had technically been dead since the eighteenth century. So supposedly they now should be "unified in Death". Only they weren't.

To all accounts, he was alone in this place.

Wes looked up from the woodwork, hand poised in midstroke, and surveyed the musty darkness of the once again abandoned hotel. The patter of rain rattled against the glass of the doors and the windows, but there were no lightning strikes to break through to illuminate the shadows. It was as if nothing dared penetrate the gloom. Yet the rain was could almost be considered overkill, he thought. This place needed no such assistance in achieving its House of the Dead ambience.

Wesley let his gaze wander up the staircase, to the balcony level and tried to convince himself that he could almost see Fred peering over the railing. But he soon closed his eyes and sighed defeatedly because he'd never been blessed with that much capacity for self-deception, no matter how much he wanted it. Even before his Watcher training had reinforced the trait, his far too analytical mind had never been able to resist looking for the terrible truth behind the beautiful lie.

Even when that beautiful lie had been skillfully woven by an ancient and powerful demon, he hadn't been able to bring himself to truly believe it.

_Then you'll be where I am. We'll be together._ Illyria's words in Fred's voice echoed inside the walls of his skull, sounding as though she–it–they were standing beside him in this room where he now stood. He reopened his eyes, awash in fresh disappointment that neither of them were there.

Well, he had to admit that he'd actually asked Illyria to lie to him. And he'd never truly expected to meet Fred in any form of afterlife. All his research had emphatically reinforced the overwhelming likelihood that all of Fred's true essence, her soul, had been totally destroyed. All that was left of her was the "shell" that Illyria wore, and the memories she carried within her. In many ways, a mockery of all that Fred had once been.

And yet Wesley had accepted Illyria's offer to use those Fred-remnants to comfort him as he lay dying. The strangeness of that struck him now, especially since he'd never truly believed that it was Fred there, holding him and telling him that she loved him. How could he have been so comforted by a patent falsehood? He had wept tears of joy at her words, feeling them wet his cheeks even as the floor beneath him grew sticky and warm with his blood. But he expected that many a dying soldier in wars gone by had clutched a portrait of his beloved and renewed his professions of enduring love to the image. And surely, if Wesley did so to the crying, talking, sleeping, walking, living doll that Illyria had provided at the moment of his own demise, well that didn't seem be so very different in its essence. And who could really blame him if it was?

That llyria, an ancient demon with no ties humanity, would even make such an offer to a dying mortal – an act of simple compassion quite beyond her initial understanding upon being corporealised – was nothing short of extraordinary. Wes felt his eyes prickling in spite of himself.

Of her own accord, Illyria had expressed concern about his fate. She would probably even mourn his passing, in her own way. _He_ had provoked these emotions in a being that had once been worshipped as a god. A little smug smile tugged at his lips. Now that he was dead and gone, there wasn't any point in denying that he derived a certain base satisfaction from knowing that.

But after a dramatic and emotion-charged swansong in the arms of a formerly god-like being, traipsing around an abandoned hotel felt like somewhat of an anticlimax. It seemed ridiculous, but now, facing the "undiscovered country", Wesley found himself restless, disappointed and, quite frankly, rather bored.

He sighed theatrically and announced to any ethereal dustmites, cockroaches or rats that might be listening, "So after all the theology and theory, the afterlife turns out to be remarkably earthly and mundane."

A low, warm, feminine and faintly amused voice caused him to start violently. "What? You were expecting hellfire and brimstone?"

Boredom and complacency were gone in an instant and he spun to face the intruder. "Lilah!"

"Well, well, look who it is. You and me together again." Lilah's smile was equal parts smug and seductive, obviously well pleased with having caught him off guard.

"We are _not_ 'together again' we just happen to be..." Wesley made a vague waving gesture with his hand. "...in the same general vicinity."

It was a pitifully weak comeback and he frowned briefly in annoyance before forcing his expression into a studious blankness while he regained his bearings.

Lilah sauntered up to him, fingering the high turtleneck collar of the short, shimmering black, sleeveless dress she wore. Her high heels clicked musically on the hard floor. She had always been the epitome of chic, even in death.

Wes looked down at his own clothes to find them exactly as he remembered them in his last moments of life, including the blood-soaked ragged hole in front. There was even still an ache from the gut-wound, although nothing like the hideous agony of when it had been inflicted. Obviously, the wardrobe-changing wasn't an automatic feature of the afterlife.

But there wasn't time to contemplate that now. The appearance of Lilah meant another battle awaited him. In what felt like an eerie replay of another confrontation which now seemed so very long ago, Lilah cheerily breezed past him. Wesley forced himself to remain as immobile, unresponsive and unwelcoming as possible, as she turned and circled around him, still wearing a teasingly seductive smile.

After almost a full minute of silence, she seemed to acknowledge that she would need to be the one to initiate any conversation.

"It's good to see you, lover," she murmured. "A little worse for the wear, but it does add to that charming air of heroism."

He offered a soft snort in response to that, allowing only his eyes to follow her motion as she walked in front of him. "You can't honestly expect me to say the same about seeing you."

She responded with a brief and playfully insincere flash of Hurt Little Girl. "So cold? Not even pleased just to see a familiar face?"

"I can think of any number of other familiar faces that I would rather see right now."

Lilah chuckled softly and radiated her familiar air of complete self-assurance.

"I don't believe you. I might not have been the most beloved person in your life but you are now facing the great unknown and the only thing that you can be certain of is your own death – and the standard perpetuity clause of your Wolfram and Hart contract. You forget, I _know_ you, Wesley – better than anyone. You have always been a man in search of answers and you must at least be _interested_ in your post-mortem contractual obligations. So who could possibly be more welcome than your favourite Evil attorney?"

"You are assuming that I actually care about what happens to me now, and what makes you think _you_ are my favourite Evil attorney anyway? I've worked at Wolfram and Hart for almost a year now and I now count several charming Evil attorneys amongst my acquaintances." He forced himself to stop watching her slowly circle around him, instead focussing his gaze on the rain beating against the glass windows directly in front of him.

She laughed again and now touched him for the first time, lightly running her fingertips across the back of his shoulder blades. He barely repressed a shudder. He was bloody well _dead_ now. His body shouldn't remember and react to her touch anymore.

"You must realise by now," she purred into his left ear, "The more you protest that you don't care about something, the more you will convince me how much you _do_ care. The past examples are too glaringly obvious to be ignored."

He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. "What do you _want_ from me, Lilah? You obviously know about the details of my contract with Wolfram and Hart..."

"Wes, I _wrote_ your contract with Wolfram and Hart."

Wesley's eyes snapped open at that and he stared at her for the space of several heartbeats, considering his response to that piece of information.

Was it even true? He could think of a few reasons that would make it unlikely.

"Why would the Senior Partners allow you to write my contract?" He frowned his confusion, trying to sense her game. What was she driving at? "It makes no sense to have a party that might be biased towards..."

"Why, Wes!" Lilah feigned shock, her hands held in front of her as if to refute his question. "Are you finally admitting to yourself that I just might care about you?"

Wesley swung to face her. "I don't believe _that_ for a second. Caring and compassion aren't part of your resume, Lilah, but we did once have an intimate relationship and I had a signed dollar bill to prove it. And I can't think of a reason why the Senior Partners would take even the _slightest_ risk that..."

"The risk that your contract might be written by someone who might put your welfare above their interests?" she interjected. "Oh, they wouldn't, Wes. It was made very clear to me what would happen if the contract failed, in any way, to get them exactly what they wanted. Trust me, that provided a very strong incentive."

He shook his head, still not understanding. "But why take any risk? And what exactly did they want?"

Lilah laughed again, but this time her tone was fond and indulgent. Stopping her maddening circuit, she stood facing him and rested a hand lightly on his chest, above the bloody hole in his shirt.

"_You_, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. They wanted _you_ – body, mind and soul. You were a high priority acquisition – and they believed that I had the most accurate insight into your character and also the strongest leverage with which to 'acquire' you for them."

"Oh, really?" There was no need to feign his scepticism about this. Wes knew he was simply a footsoldier in the battle, a pawn in the game. He was of no great consequence. He might have strategic value from time to time, mainly to be used against Angel in various ways. But he himself didn't have the sort of inherent importance that would warrant anyone making a play for Wesley Wyndam-Pryce for his own sake.

"Lilah, that argument doesn't even begin to hold water. For a start, it wasn't even you they sent to try and win me into the service of Wolfram and Hart. You delegated that task to Sirk, while you swanned off to take Angel on the Magical Mystery Tour. It was pretty clear where even _your_ priorities for 'acquisition' lay."

"Oh, don't be jealous, lover." She snaked her arms around his shoulders and clasped her hands behind his neck, keeping her bright sunny smile despite his lack of response. "I never said that Angel wasn't _also_ a priority. And I had to pretend to be distracted elsewhere so you could sneak off to make that valiant attempt to burn my contract. _That_ was the final test, you know? And you couldn't have done it with me looking over your shoulder."

He lifted an eyebrow. "I fail to see what it was about that foolish gesture that proved that I was a suitable employee for Wolfram and Hart."

"Oh, Wes!" she chided his obtuseness. "It had nothing to do with the Senior Partners deciding on your suitability. They had already chosen to acquire you. It was _my_ final test to see how effective my strategy would be."

She let the silence drag out a few moments before asking coyly, "Aren't you going to ask me what my strategy was?"

He reached behind his neck and unclasped her hands to bring them back around where he could see them. One never knew, with Lilah, what might be hiding out of plain sight. "I don't need to ask. You desperately want to tell me how clever you've been."

"True," she grinned and made no move to release her hands from his grasp. "It confirmed a few things I knew about your character, but more importantly, it made sure that the Senior Partners got the right impression."

"The 'right' impression being?"

" Oh, just that the chance to release me from my perpetuity clause was a huge incentive to you and how important that gesture was to me."

"What would make them think it was imp–"

Pulling one of her hands free, she silenced him with a gentle finger to his lips. It took him a moment to register the easy intimacy of the gesture and another to go on to resent it, but by then she had begun to speak again.

"To the Senior Partners, it was convincing evidence of a bond between us. It meant that they would attribute some things that I put in your contract to my affection..." A small smile touched her lips when Wes snorted at the idea and she shrugged off his derision. "You can call it 'gratitude' instead, if you like, or even 'possessive obsession'. The Senior Partners had no problems with that. They knew how effective it would be for keeping their minions in line. If I was at all important to you or you to me, they could use that."

Wes folded his arms. "So you got one past them by convincing them you had a weakness which did not, in fact, exist. I fail to see what advantage that has gained you."

"Oh, you would be surprised. Every little diversion helps and it wasn't just with the Senior Partners. It got under your guard too. I wrote your contract with the same wording as mine in the initial part of the perpetuity clause. After that, the fine print differs significantly, but neither you nor the Partners noticed."

Wesley's eyes narrowed but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of replying.

"Yes, I know you. In your quaint twisted rationalisation, you'd decided that if you couldn't release me from the perpetuity clause, then you should suffer the same fate."

"You think I wanted to spend eternity with _you_ in Hell?"

"Want? Wes, with you it's rarely about what you actually want. It's nearly always about what you think you _deserve_." Flipping her dark locks over one shoulder, she tipped her head and regarded him frankly. "And anyway, it wasn't as if you originally intended to passively sit by and accept that fate. I remember your earlier days at Wolfram and Hart, watching you use every avenue at your disposal to search for a loophole in the perpetuity clause. So the self-interest in my efforts on your behalf also must have been obvious to the Senior Partners – and I really didn't mind them believing it."

He was forced to wonder how she could possibly know all this, if she'd been languishing in Hell.

"I'd like to know how you came by your information." he said, inspecting her expression closely for signs of deception. "What was it? Some sort of stalking from beyond the grave?"

"More or less," she chuckled, batting her lashes and resting her hands on her hips. "If you like, it's a special 'stalker clause' in your contract, tucked away in all that fine print. All information that the staff at Wolfram and Hart or their associates gleaned about you always came to me first. The Senior Partners saw it and let it slide. How else was a dead girl to keep track of her wayward lover? It must have entertained them no end – watching me watch you stew over the Great Science Geek Romance and they must have really gotten their jollies at my reaction to Miss Burkle finally requiting your Grand Passion. They would have noticed, as I did, that all your research into finding a way out of the perpetuity clause for me – not to mention for yourself – fell completely by the wayside at that point." She sighed with theatrical despondency. "The final joke on me. Deserted by the man I'd pinned all my hopes on. All my schemes come to nothing."

Wes angrily stomped down on the sudden guilt he felt reaching out towards him. This was Lilah Morgan, Evil Bitch and survivor par excellence – current dead status notwithstanding. Why should he feel guilty about falling behind in his efforts to try to save her – and himself? No – not after what had happened to Fred! Fred was gone and Lilah was still here, still exuding that smug, controlled and slightly playful air that had always annoyed – and fascinated – him.

"And yet I have no doubt it was all part of a brilliantly devious plan, one in which you found a way to turn it all to your advantage," he said coldly, stepping past her to look through the door's rain-streaked panes at the sodden courtyard beyond.

"Of course, Wes. I never take my eye off the ball. The information I received about you was always carefully 'screened' before it was passed on. Always believable, but never complete. Knowledge is power, Wes. You know that. I always kept a few things to myself, put a 'jealous jilted lover' slant on a few others. You have _no_ idea how much you owe me, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce..." Her footfalls came closer, the clicking heels stepping off marble, then becoming absorbed into silence by the carpeting at his side.

He swung back to her, anger flaring, his fists clenched. "Or perhaps how much you owe _me_? After all it was writing _my_ contract that has allowed you to work this leverage that you are now so damnably proud of. Was it just me, or did your 'special expertise' mean that you wrote the contract for Angel too?"

She shrugged. "If you must know, yes, I had a hand in writing Angel's as well. I'd been in charge of that Special Project for years by that stage, and Lindsey used to always go on about bringing Angel down by exploiting his best intentions – one of the little lawyer's more intelligent ideas, I must admit. Connor was always going to be Angel's Achilles' heel. All I had to do was dangle the possibility of Perfect Happiness for Connor in front of him, and Angel cheerfully signed away the fates of each and every one of you with a stroke of his blood-soaked pen. And he had a sort of defacto overriding power over the rest of you, so…"

Wesley bristled at the suggestion that someone else had made the decision to join Wolfram and Hart for him. "I knew exactly what I was doing when I signed my own contract, Lilah," he snapped darkly, "with _my_ own blood."

"Believe me, I know," Lilah said, almost soothingly. "But your memory had already been a little addled by that stage. How can you be sure that the decision was completely your own?"

"Because I now have those memories back," he replied, his voice taut with suppressed fury, "and I still would have made the same decision."

"Tell yourself what you have to, Wes. I've got no complaints. It all worked out well for me."

Exasperated by her self-congratulatory tone, Wesley's impatience overcame him. He had to know. "So, did you write the contracts for Fred and Gunn and Lorne as well?"

Lilah gazed at him steadily, a slow, calculating smile slithering across her crimson-painted lips. Wesley struggled not to swallow convulsively in embarrassment, realizing that yet again he had failed to conceal his real interest from her.

"Gunn's agreement was made directly with the Conduit," she informed him. "Lorne's contract was a collaboration between the Entertainment Department's legal team and Demon Liaison." Her businesslike tone faded and her voice became feather-soft. "And no, Wes, I didn't write Miss Burkle's contract, and there's nothing that I, or anyone else on this or any other Earth can do for her anyway."

He knew he shouldn't have expected to hear anything different , but still – the words cut deeply, drawing renewed agony from emotional wounds just barely scabbed over. Abruptly, Lilah's hand was once again upon his shoulder, but this time the touch was not in the least seductive. Just comforting. How very odd. He realized then he must have staggered, just a little, under the weight of the news, and having her offer some kind of support, even if it was tendered out of pity, briefly touched something inside him that he thought had been obliterated. He closed his eyes against the sudden sting of moisture, refusing to share his sorrow with the woman who he knew would take too much pleasure in his show of weakness.

"Her soul was consumed in the process that brought forth Illyria." Lilah spoke quietly into his ear. Her grip on his shoulder tightened. "That made any contractual obligations with Wolfram and Hart redundant. You know that, Wes." Abruptly she released him, stepping back, and Wes let himself lean against the nearest wall, hiding the shaking of his hands by pressing them against the cool marble facade. "Your research was immaculate. She's gone, but at least she's at peace."

"Peace?" He glared at her, regaining emotional control of himself as anguish reshaped itself into anger – a far more useful tool with which to combat this particular adversary. He wouldn't accept that platitude from anyone, least of all Lilah. "Her end was _anything but_ peaceful! She suffered horribly – unthinkable brutality wreaked on her body and mind by the infection of this _thing_ introduced into her – and if there's a shred of honesty in you, you will acknowledge Wolfram and Hart had no intention of letting it happen any other way! They played on her curiosity and her decency as a human being, and even as she fell ill she felt some sense of scientific responsibility towards understanding what was killing her! And you think I should take comfort in the utter destruction of her soul? How is that in some way better than a flawed but continued existence of 'contractual obligations'?"

Lilah laughed, her scorn palpable. "She would never have coped with this existence, Wes."

"How would _you_ know she couldn't cope? She was much stronger than anyone knew and you, for all your scheming and spying, didn't know her at all. Fred _wouldn't_ have given up."

"It's not 'strength' of will, Wes. Her mind was too inflexible, it only worked in black and white. She had no aptitude for the grey areas. Whenever darkness touched her, she lashed out, kicking at it and at anyone who brought it close to her. You experienced that first hand. She couldn't use the darkness, make it work for her. She would never have survived here."

He turned away from her and heard her sigh behind him.

"It's not meant to comfort you, Wes. But it _is_ the truth."

"Truth?" He turned back to glare at her. "I'm expected to believe that you care anything about truth? Or about her?"

"Truth is a matter of interpretation, Wes, and I shouldn't have to remind you that Wolfram and Hart has been effectively cornering the market on exactly that area for centuries – not that you and your pals weren't averse to using our expertise to benefit your own ends when it suited you. And care about your precious little Fred?" She met his anger calmly. "No, I don't care about her in the least. But do I care about _you_?"

His gaze hurled every iota of scepticism he was capable of at her, but it merely provoked a faintly ironic smirk.

"Well, I _do_ have a reputation with the Senior Partners to maintain."

The sight of her suddenly repelled him and he turned his back again. "You had better start maintaining it without reference to me." He felt her brush past his shoulder, coming around to face him again, and closed his eyes.

"Hmmm, I can see that." Her tone had lost all seduction and become pure disdain.

He let his curiosity get the better of him and he opened his eyes. The look on her face now mirrored the one she had worn that morning after the Rain of Fire, when she had finally realised that he was in earnest about ending their relationship. He felt something tense within him. The gloves would be well and truly off now.

"I wouldn't expect anything from a washed-out husk of man who just mopes around in his own gloom. You're quite cute when you play the noble martyr, Wes, fascinating when you're teetering on the edge of real insanity and downright sexy when you're flirting with the darkness. But when you wallow in this 'my life has no meaning' defeatist crap, I couldn't be bothered knowing you and, quite frankly, who could?"

"What do you bloody _expect_ from me, Lilah?" he snarled back, "I'm _dead_! Have you never heard the phrase 'resquiat in pace'?"

Lilah just snorted in typical amused derision, "'Rest? Peace? No much of either of those around here, lover. Haven't _you_ ever heard of the phrase 'no rest for the wicked'? Of course you aren't technically 'wicked', not really. Just somewhat corruptible..."

His arms folded across his chest, seemingly without any conscious effort on his part. "And you _still_ think you are the most qualified to corrupt me?"

The bright bubble of laughter that erupted from Lilah seemed utterly genuine, as if the amusement had caught her truly by surprise, and it took her a moment or two to recover enough to answer.

"Me? Oh Wesley, I very rapidly learned that I never had any real hope of gaining any Evil influence over you. All I ever managed was to strengthen your self-righteous streak, if anything. What was it you once told me 'There is such a thing as black and white, Good and Evil.'? With me around, you could look Evil directly in the eye and reject it to its face."

Lilah paused, her gaze weighing up his reaction and Wes braced himself against whatever brutal words he knew would be coming. She leaned forward intently with the look of a panther about to go for her victim's throat, but she spoke with a tone of honey mixed with vinegar.

"But how could you ever go astray with someone like Snow White Burkle in your life? I mean, when she was obsessed with taking revenge on a man she told you had wronged her, all you did was give her the means to send another human being to a living hell and then drive her to the venue. And if she was in danger, you felt quite justified in shooting and wounding a subordinate who didn't share your belief that saving her was the only thing that mattered in the world. And if she was actually dead, well... Stabbing a man who had been your friend and brother-in-arms since before you'd even heard of Winifred Burkle or cold-bloodedly murdering another that you held responsible for her fate... Winifred's noble Wesley Wyndam-Pryce didn't even stumble slightly as he charged across those lines."

Her voice had dropped to soft purr, then she suddenly leaned back with a heartfelt chuckle.

"It's so utterly ironic that you always seem to cast _me_ as the Evil temptress in your mind. The most depraved things I ever coerced you into were some of our more interesting erotic entanglements – and come to think of it," She tilted her head, affecting a thoughtful frown, "you already owned the handcuffs. No, it's clear that good ol' Fred drove you to far darker acts than I ever could have hoped to. Face it, Wes, associating with Miss Goody Two Shoes has never been good for the state of your soul. It would seem that you need a bad, bad woman like me to keep you on the straight and narrow."

Only a lifetime's training in self-restraint enabled him to resist the overwhelming desire to put a hand around her throat and choke off her vicious words. But it wasn't as if that had ever been effective with Lilah before anyway. All he had was weak verbal denial.

"The day I need you for any guidance whatsoever will be..."

"The day you shuffle off your mortal coil?" He was surprised to see her arms crossed. It was the first hint of defensive body language she'd let slip. "When Hell freezes over? When the dead rise again? When the Apocalypse arrives on your doorstep? Go on, Wes. Tell me _exactly_ under what circumstances you might accept any help from me."

"Maybe when I can trust that it won't end up with something like one of my friends getting their brain drilled and drained."

Another snort of disbelief. "Oh please! Talk about dead and buried! It's about time you got over that one. You tried a move and it ended up biting you in the ass. That's the game, Wesley. If you want to be a player, you've got to learn to take the hard knocks that come your way."

"It's never been a game to some of us, Lilah."

"No, I know you prefer to think of it as some kind of noble crusade. What's the phrase? 'Fighting the Good Fight'? And how _is_ your little war going? Remind me what Angel's amazing battle plan was."

He maintained a defiant silence, but it was just part of this war of wills with Lilah rather than a matter of keeping Angel's tactical secrets. Lilah wouldn't ask if she didn't already know and, as he'd expected, after only a brief pause she proceeded to demonstrate that knowledge.

"Angel infiltrates the Circle of the Black Thorn so he can ID them and take their names down, murdering Drogyn - Keeper of the Deeper Well and All-Round Good Guy in the process. You then all decide to assassinate the members of said Circle and, despite the fact that you know that this will _really_ piss off the Senior Partners, none of you bother to cover up the hits nor make any plans for a viable escape. I'd love to know what exactly you all planned to achieve. One grand, pointless and deeply suicidal gesture? "

"Why should you even care, Lilah?"

"Well, I don't really. I'm just amazed by the sheer suicidal idiocy of it. How exactly does it help the helpless? Or did that mandate go completely out the window? Does it stop the Apocalypse? No, you knew that when you started. Does it stop the Senior Partners? No, it just inconveniences them enough to piss them off. But then again, it's probably totally unreasonable for me to expect any logic to be involved. After all, the great masterplan _was_ thought up by Angel."

"We agreed to it, all of us. The Circle had to be stopped."

"Yes, well, in your case, I'd just assume that was part of your latent deathwish."

"Deathwish?" Mystical stalker clause or not, she didn't have insight into his mind and soul. "You may have been watching and listening all this time, Lilah, but you still don't really know me. You never did."

"Oh please, Wesley! Even the most insight-challenged of your friends noticed you retreating from the world following _her_ death. And while I am well aware of your recent bold little pronouncement about 'not intending to die', I'm equally aware that you also said that the world contained 'nothing you wanted' only moments before. I'm not sure how you reconcile the two but it sounds highly ambivalent to me."

Wesley was again shaken by the extent of her information. Only he and Illyria had been present for that particular conversation and he was damn sure that neither of them had – or ever would – report the details to any source that would serve Wolfram and Hart. He didn't see how Lilah could possibly know this.

An uncharacteristically girlish giggle drew his gaze back to her face. Really, this perpetual amusement of hers was getting tiresome.

"Where were you when you said it?" she cheerfully prompted.

"With Illyria..." He was reluctant to humour her. It was obvious that she already knew. "In Spike's apartment..." He tested that theory and immediately rejected it. "You're not trying to tell me that _Spike_ is an agent of the Senior Partners?" The very idea was simply ludicrous!

"Why would the Senior Partners be involved?" She sighed as if he'd disappointed her.

"Fair question, but I find it equally unlikely that Spike would ally himself with you."

"Perhaps, but you _do_ know how Spike came by that apartment, don't you?"

He made the connection and was appalled. "Lindsey."

"Well done! Yes, we installed an almost untraceable, surveillance charm which made us privy to any conversation conducted within the apartment's walls. Lucky for us, that your little band did so much of your plotting there. It at least enabled us to organise some degree of damage control."

Wesley was still staring at her. "You're working with Lindsey?"

Lilah raised an eyebrow. "You seem surprised. Strange. He and I were colleagues for years, after all."

Dead or not, Wes suddenly felt the need to sit down. As steadily as he could, he made his way to the bench in the centre of the lobby.

"God." He shook his head slowly, a token gesture of denial. "How long? From the very beginning?"

"Well, we set the groundwork before he left LA a couple of years ago." There was a certain curious hesitation to her speech and she tilted her head to one side. It was as if she couldn't quite work out what he was getting at. Then she shrugged and continued in a dry factual tone of voice. "Hell, before he hightailed it out of town, he virtually handed me his promotion and probably saved my life in the process. I don't tend to do gratitude all that well, but if someone else is feeling generous, I'm happy to exploit it. It was just left at that for a long time. I didn't reinitiate any active contact with him until after my death."

"All this time," Wes still couldn't get past the point, "you have been working with Lindsey against us."

She was evil. He'd always known and never once doubted that she was evil. She was thoroughly evil without even the slightest inclination towards redemption. Not once in all the time he'd known her had she wavered from her commitment to evil. He couldn't understand why this should feel at all like betrayal.

"You seem to be having trouble with that, Wes." She still seemed a little perplexed by his reaction. "But you still haven't got the full picture. Yes, Lindsey and I have been working together and sometimes directly against you and the rest of Angel's merry little band. But the really funny thing is that we all ended up working along remarkably similar lines."

"What?" He found that extremely unlikely.

"Yeah, I know. I still find it hard to believe that Angel also came up with the idea of infiltrating the Circle of the Black Thorn."

Wes remembered the deep concern he'd had when it looked as though Angel was again turning to the dark side, before the vampire had let them know he was bluffing. It had been Lindsey that had told them about the Circle, under interrogation, and that he too had intended to join that demonic cabal. Was Lilah now telling him that Lindsey's plan was a similar ruse?

Wesley could still see the disbelief on Lindsey McDonald's face and allowed his amusement to show in his voice. "Lindsey couldn't believe that Angel would succeed where he himself had failed."

Lilah shrugged. "Well, Lindsey has serious Angel issues which cause him to underestimate the old bloodsucker. But I have to admit that neither of us foresaw Angel making that move and it put a serious spanner in the works."

She sighed. "Wouldn't have been so bad if we'd been able to get him on board with our more 'softly, softly' plan, but it was rapidly obvious that would be a no go. Angel has always been about instant gratification when it comes to destroying his enemies. So it was pretty clear that he wouldn't agree to our more stable, sustainable plan to take them out over a ten year timeframe."

"You're telling me that you and Lindsey had hatched a plan to destroy the Circle over a period of ten years?" The scepticism came easily and he tried to ignore the comfortable sense of familiarity he felt was creeping in on him.

"Yes, Wesley. You find that so hard to believe? Lindsey always planned to go in to take it apart from the inside. He always was a hard and ambitious player and his hatred of Angel is frankly obsessive. But he's never ever been a 'destroy the world' kind of guy. I would have thought that was obvious even to Angel. And to speak candidly, there isn't much advantage for me in Armageddon either. I may be dead, but there are still things I want from this world."

"Such as?" As he was still seated, she had the height advantage, but he leaned back with his arms crossed and offered his best dubious nonchalance.

She leaned over him and patted his cheek playfully. "Now _that_ would be telling."

She straightened up and glanced towards the rain-splattered windows. When she looked back at Wesley, her face and manner were suddenly sombre and businesslike.

"I've really enjoyed this little dance with you, but we've run out of time. Circumstances urgently call for my attention elsewhere."

He was intrigued despite himself. "What circumstances?"

"It seems my other partner in crime finds himself in need of assistance. I suppose we more or less expected it, but I still need to be there to get him though it." Her eyes narrowed on him. "Y'know, Lorne's lucky that he's such a good friend of yours, Wes, and that you've always taken such exception to attacks on friends because I really could cheerfully implode his brain right now."

His initial response to that died on his lips and he hurriedly stood to face her. ""Wait just a minute, here! Your _other_ partner in crime? I hope you aren't thinking of me in those terms because I certainly didn't sign up for a partnership with you."

"Actually, you did. Well, maybe not a partnership per se, but if you'd listened to me and read the fine print of your contract, you'd know that Subsection 14(c) of your perpetuity clause states that I supervise your duties for Wolfram and Hart following your death."

There was an unmistakable air of triumph in her pronouncement, but Wesley managed to stifle his indignation. So, she'd finally managed to get some kind of hold over him. Let her savour this little victory for a while; it would give him a way under her guard and she might let something else slip that he could use to his advantage.

"Wonderful," he sighed with what he thought was a fair portrayal of detached resignation, "I hear you're the boss from hell."

There was no indication that she hadn't accepted his acquiescence at face value, as she again patted him on the cheek. "Play your cards right and I could make your afterlife a whole lot easier."

He couldn't resist raising an eyebrow at that. "And here I thought that Wolfram and Hart had a progressive attitude towards sexual harassment in the workplace."

"I'm still your boss, Wes. Just be a good boy and do as I tell you?"

The hand on his cheek traced a sensual caress down the line of his jaw, evoking vivid memories which he tried to force to the back of his mind.

"And you want me to help you pull Lindsey out of whatever trouble he's gotten into?" He had to clear his throat slightly before he spoke and triumph again glittered in her eyes.

She shook her head. "No, I can handle that and you need to deal with another situation anyway."

"And that would be?" Garnering a little more equanimity, he folded his arms and leaned on one foot. After this, he'd be ready for just about anything.

"To sum it up for you. In the back alley behind the Hyperion hotel, a mortally wounded Charles Gunn has less than ten minutes to live but he says he wants to make them memorable. Illyria just wants to do more violence and she'll probably get her wish because an innumerable horde of fiends from various hell dimensions is bearing down upon them. Spike thinks they need a plan."

His eyes widened slightly. "_Spike_ thinks they need a plan? Really? And Angel?"

Helping Angel and his other friends was just about the last thing he had expected Lilah to ask of him. But then again, it was something she knew that he certainly wouldn't refuse. Hell, she wouldn't be able to stop him if she'd wanted to, no matter what fine print his contract contained.

No doubt this all formed part of her manipulations, but he could hardly challenge it, not if Angel and the others were being held to ransom. Lilah's tone was matter-of-fact as she answered his question, but he could see how carefully she was gauging his reactions.

"Angel's current priority is to slay the dragon."

Wes blinked. He couldn't help it. "I hope you just slipped into metaphor."

"Not in the slightest."

"A dragon?"

Lilah shrugged. "A large airborne reptilian predator with the capacity to exhale fire. I'm comfortable calling it a dragon."

"Indeed." There didn't seem to be much more he could say in response to that. "Well, you describe an interesting challenge but how would I even get to them?"

He'd hoped that he sounded suitably attentive and diligent, but she looked rather disappointed in him.

"An alley _behind the Hyperion Hotel_, Wes." She gestured towards the back entrance, then cracked a brief smile when she saw the look on his face. "Oh, don't tell me you thought this was some form of purgatory! No, this is the real former HQ for Angel Investigations. They're out back and you'd better hurry."

He decided that some sort of protest was necessary, even as he made his way to the door. "Lilah, I haven't the faintest idea how to handle the situation. I haven't had time to plan anything."

"Just go with what you've got, Wes." She shrugged offhandedly. "Try out a couple of spells or something. That fancy collapsible sword of yours is always cute."

He paused to turn back and glare at her, as his hand closed over the door handle. "Oh yes, because that plan went _so_ well last time! A quiet dinner, a little spellcasting, a large knife being twisted though my internal organs..."

"Don't be so negative." She made a shooing gesture with her hands. "We don't have time to argue about it. And you might mention to Angel that we will have to go and find Connor too."

"Connor? What the hell do you want with Connor?" The outburst escaped, despite his resolution not to let her put him on the back foot again.

"Geez, Wesley! When _did_ you let your brain just totally wither away? Angel deliberately pisses off the Senior Partners with the full intent of 'going out in a blaze of glory' and you and he both think they'll just leave his son out of it because the kid's a 'civilian'? Connor still has a big role to play in this little shindig, so yeah, one of us – probably you – will have to retrieve him soon."

"Anything else?" he asked dryly, "Pick up your dry cleaning, perhaps?"

That won him one last sparkle of laughter. "No rest for the wicked, Wes. I think I mentioned that."

She blew him a kiss and suddenly was gone. He must have blinked because he didn't even see her disappear.

"She'll have to teach me that trick," he muttered to the empty room then opened the door and stepped out into the pouring rain.

So, even after death, he could still get drenched by a downpour and feel the biting wind go straight through to his bones. It didn't do much for his abdominal wound either which flared up when hit by the driving rain. Cold, wet and still in pain – weren't there _any_ advantages to be had from death as a state of being?

Other noises cut through the howling of the storm. The shrieks and cries of what sounded like very large beasts and demons, the clang of metal weapons beating against each other and screams and shouting from voices Wesley recognised even if he couldn't make out their words.

Sprinting around the corner, the scene that met his eyes was much as Lilah had described it. Gunn was down, but somehow Wes just knew that he was still alive. Illyria and Spike stood back to back, close enough to defend the human, with at least ten demons of different species closing in. And Angel was swinging his sword at a gigantic, winged, fire-breathing lizard.

Yes, Wes decided that he would definitely classify it as a dragon.

Illyria staggered, as a clawed talon raked across her shoulder. Her momentary weakness left Gunn and Spike exposed and the demon horde charged. Gunn couldn't have much time left anyway – and Wes didn't particularly want his friend to discover for himself the joys of Wolfram and Hart's perpetuity clause.

But even as he started towards them, a battleaxe tore a chunk out of Spike's side and he went down. Then an ear-splitting screech from the dragon made Wesley turn again. Angel stumbled and the huge reptile drew back, probably to incinerate him with a column of flame.

"Oh well, no rest for the wicked."

It was the same spell that he'd used earlier that evening, but this time, as the words of the incantation flowed through his mind, he was startled by the strength of the current of magic he felt coursing through him.

Not quite certain what to expect, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce drew his arm back and took aim.

_-- The End?--_

18


End file.
